Flo Wrestling Eastern World Championships

[durdon]

The problem is the mentality. After 3/31, AAU should completely cease running tournaments. AAU should be for middle school and under only. Let USA Wrestling take over beginning 4/1.

 

Why not follow other models of success? Last weekend was also the Georgia Games in Atlanta. Freestyle and Greco on Saturday. Folkstyle was on Sunday. There were almost 800 entrants. Hosted by none other than USA Wrestling.

Huh? 800 entrants? They only had 250 kids at the Ga games, which was just a little more than what showed up at the TN Ironman.

[Newestguy]

Huh? 800 entrants? They only had 250 kids at the Ga games, which was just a little more than what showed up at the TN Ironman.

I was there. The registration before it closed Thursday night for FS/Greco was at 733. I was assuming there were a few more registering for Folkstyle on Sunday afterwards. I personally know at least 2 kids who missed the deadline, petitioned to get in and were turned down. 

 

They wrestled on 10 mats. 6 in one gym for highschool and 4 in another for MS/kids. The smallest HS weightclass was HWY which had 6 entrants. Although they combined 100 with 106 they may have had 6 or 7.

 

Were you there?

 

My original point is why don't we attempt to follow the Georgia model. Georgia has weekly tournaments from April 1 through mid May, highlighted with the SE Nationals. They are all FS/Greco with the only Folkstyle being Georgia Games on a Sunday and MS/kids for SE Nationals. Almost impossible to get less than 8-10 matches each week (provided you wrestle both styles). Thats nearly 60 matches in the offseason all being FS/Greco.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Newestguy

[deadlift]

I don't believe we could make our schedule much different than it already is. No one will want to run tournaments in early April because of all the kids we have on National teams and attending National tournaments at that time. The TN Ironman is usually the first well attended tournament of our season because it takes place after AAU National Duals and Ohio TOC. This year we had competition with Eastern Worlds.

For Freestyle and Greco to grow in TN we have to give the season just the 4-5 weeks of competition they ask for with no other interuptions. 5 weeks out of the whole year is all we are looking for. It sounds real easy to me.

[durdon]

I was there. The registration before it closed Thursday night for FS/Greco was at 733. I was assuming there were a few more registering for Folkstyle on Sunday afterwards. I personally know at least 2 kids who missed the deadline, petitioned to get in and were turned down.

 

They wrestled on 10 mats. 6 in one gym for highschool and 4 in another for MS/kids. The smallest HS weightclass was HWY which had 6 entrants. Although they combined 100 with 106 they may have had 6 or 7.

 

Were you there?

 

My original point is why don't we attempt to follow the Georgia model. Georgia has weekly tournaments from April 1 through mid May, highlighted with the SE Nationals. They are all FS/Greco with the only Folkstyle being Georgia Games on a Sunday and MS/kids for SE Nationals. Almost impossible to get less than 8-10 matches each week (provided you wrestle both styles). Thats nearly 60 matches in the offseason all being FS/Greco.

Here is the exact numbers.

 

Ga game Greco 193 Tn ironman 171

Ga games folk 195 tn ironman 170

Ga games free 307 tN ironman 182

 

Ga is running there tournaments under the same registration system and organization that they use for folk and they did not have significantly more numbers than we had and we had a major national in our state we had to compete with. Had it not been for the Eastern we probably would have had more numbers than Ga had this past weekend.

Look I'm probably the biggest cheerleader for TeamGa and the way they operate things during folk season but they have not figured out how to take free/Greco to the next level.

[Newestguy]

"Look I'm probably the biggest cheerleader for TeamGa and the way they operate things during folk season but they have not figured out how to take free/Greco to the next level. "

 

As compared to who? Pennsylvania? Considering 1) they take a National team (I believe 4 deep) on a chartered bus every year to Fargo 2) They pay the way for the top 2 or 3 kids each year to go to Fargo 3) They have a structured competition schedule (besides just 1 tournament) to see exactly who those scholarship recipients would be 4) They host the prestigious Southeast Regional each year (this used to be at UTC btw) 5) They host FS/GR tournaments weekly from the 1st of April to mid May  and, 6) They provide an intense training grounds for their Fargo competitors 3-4 weeks out

 

I'd say they have just a bit of an edge over us. Other than that though, your right, it's about the same as TN. After all, we host the Ironman each year and the Greco and Folkstyle divisions have almost as many participants as the Georgia Games.

[TeamTN]

The Flo Eastern Worlds will not take place on the same date next year and should not be held during a time it will compete with any TeamTN AAU or USA events.  Jack Roller checked with both parties to make sure both were OK for him to have that tournament in Knoxville because he did not want to conflict with any other tournaments that were being held and both parties agreed that it would be.  

 

The numbers for the Eastern Worlds was low but there were some really goo, high ranking wrestlers there.  In talking to several TN coaches and Wrestlers, they like the event being held in Tennessee and really liked the Awards that were presented.  From the ones I spoke with, they said they would be back for the event.

 

I agree with the person who made the statement that one of the reasons there are not more kids wrestling FS/GR is because there are few coaches, especially in the more rural areas, of the state.  It is getting better and more and more qualified coaches are starting programs.